Officials, experts and scholars from around the world are discussing ways to improve the rights of Chinese farmers at a two-day workshop in Haikou, the capital of southern China's Hainan Province, which opened here Thursday.

The meeting is co-sponsored by the Haikou-based China Institute for Reform and Development and the International Republican Institute of the United States.

More than 120 participants will discuss major issues such as public policies concerning farmers after the SARS outbreak, the migration of surplus laborers from the countryside, the rights of transient workers from rural areas, and the link between farmers' organizations and farmers' rights.

These participants have come from the United States, Norway, India and Nepal as well as China to provide the Chinese government with references in making policies on rural development.

China, with a population of 1.3 billion, has over 900 million rural residents.
The growing economic gap between urban residents and rural people is hindering China's sustainable development, though enormous achievements have been made in the countryside over the past two decades, according to some noted Chinese experts.